Conservation Status Of Reptiles, Which Include Snakes, Lizards, Turtles & Tortoises, Tuataras and The

The annual energy potential of renewable versus nonrenewable energy sources

In 2013 the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected global coal use to grow 39% by 2040. Their 2017 projected revises that growth to... about 1%.

Look at that wind and solar growth

According to environmental historian Philip Wright, declining oil transport by the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is one impetus for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Less oil in the pipeline means the oil moves slows and cools down faster, resulting in technical problems like ice and wax buildup. Drilling proponents argue that drilling in ANWR is necessary to increase the oil supply in the pipeline.

Protecting Global Biodiversity Hotspots

Map 1: Biodiversity hotspot regions. Biodiversity hotspots are defined as areas "[h]aving at least 1500 endemic plant species and having lost at least 70 per cent of their original habitat extent".

Map 2: Conservation targets. The Convention on Biological Diversity is a multilateral treaty seeking to safeguard global biodiversity. One target calls for protected areas, formal designations of land protected for conservation, so cover 17% of earth’s land area. This Map highlights biodiversity hotspot regions where at least 17% of land area is formally protected (blue-green), and biodiversity hotspot regions where less than 17% is formally protected (red-orange).

Map 3: Protected areas. Formal protected areas are shaded green. Dark green areas are protected areas that allow for use of natural resources (i.e. protected forests where sustainable logging is permitted, or protected grasslands where livestock grazing is permitted). Light green are strict protected areas (i.e. nature reserves, national parks and monuments, wilderness areas). Areas shaded red are biodiversity hotspot regions.

Source: ATLAS for the END of the WORLD

Early September 2017 saw wildfires raging through the American west.

“2017 is on track to be one of the worst years for wildfires in the US on record, with a total of 8.1 million acres burned as of September 13 — already well above the annual to-date average of 6 million acres for the past decade.”

And this results in poor air quality in the region as fires throw smoke and particulate matter into the air. The middle map above shows air quality on September 6, 2017, in the American west, with darker colors indicating more hazardous air. 

Consider Seeley, MT (last image), where measurements of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) show a spike of 214.6 micrograms per cubic meter. 

“Even in tiny concentrations... particulates can increase visits to the emergency room, especially for the elderly and people with chronic breathing problems...  research shows that when pollution is very high, over 37 [micrograms per cubic meter], we start to see health consequences”

With climate change increasing temperatures and decreasing precipitation, the American west will likely experience more fires and more dangerous air quality in the future.

Quoted text from Vox

The government owns a whole lot of land in the western United States. The resulting conflict between the government and environmentalists seeking to conserve this land for multiple use (parks, ranching, logging, mining, forestry, wildlife preservation, recreation etc.), and the Wise Use movement seeking to transfer the land from the government to the states or to private ownership, is a hallmark environmental fight in the west that many in the eastern United States are unaware. And it drives these standoffs that we saw in Nevada (Cliven Bundy) and now Oregon.

Brad Plumer in the Washington Post explains a new study on the dramatic drop in carbon emissions in the U.S. over the past five years. This graph shows a hypothetical level of emissions that were projected based on trends from 1990-2005, compared to the actual level of emissions in 2012. It then breaks down the causes.

Plumer explains:

The recession and financial crisis, obviously, made a big difference. A weaker economy has meant less demand for energy — that was responsible for more than half the drop compared with business as usual.

Meanwhile, Houser and Mohan find the U.S. economy actually hasn’t become vastly less energy-intensive over time (the blue bar). Yes, overall efficiency has gone up — Americans are buying more fuel-efficient cars and trucks, etc. But the country is also no longer shedding manufacturing jobs as quickly as it was during the 1990s. So the amount of energy we use per unit of GDP has generally followed historical trends, improving only gradually.

The real change has come in the type of energy that the United States is using. The country is now relying more heavily cleaner forms of energy than it used to, and that explains about half of the fall in emissions